A man who infected a person with the HIV virus cannot be charged with reckless endangerment as a depraved indifference offense because while the defendant cared “much too little” about the victim’s safety, the evidence cannot support a finding that he didn’t care at all, an upstate appellate panel has held.
In a decision Nov. 15, the Appellate Division, Fourth Department, said in People v. Williams, 1196, that the defendant’s conduct did not create a grave risk of death— an element of first-degree reckless endangerment—because an HIV infection is no longer “tantamount to a death sentence.”
